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Saturday, August 13, 2011

Bacon Fried Rice

I mentioned that I found this new blog a few posts back, and so far, it has been a huge hit. Both recipes that I've tried have gotten five stars, so I'm going to keep trying out their dishes and I'm thrilled to have found a new source. Plus, they have cats and love them, so I'm extra fond of them :).

So, in honor of their (and my) love of crazy cats, I had to put one totally unnecessary picture of my ridiculous kitten. See, he's obsessed with the heating pad. He will even go over to it and sit on it and wait for us to turn it on. Then, once he's been on the heat for a while, he gets, as we affectionately call it "high on heat". Basically, he goes nuts and rolls around a lot and vigorously defends the heating pad against any intruders and attacks all that try and pet him. Nuts I tell you.

But, so yeah this fried rice. It's unbelievable. Bf and I agree, it's better than any fried rice we've ever ordered from a restaurant. Something about the (turkey) bacon and relatively fresh veggies is so delicious that we couldn't get enough. In fact, I made it last night and I'm pretty sure I'm making it again tomorrow because it's that good. Go ahead and judge me, I would too. My only complaint is that the recipe doesn't make a whole lot. The original link says four servings, but it's more like 2 large servings (assuming it's your entire dish, and why shouldn't it be? It has veggies, meat, carbs, everything you need!). So next time (aka tomorrow night), I'm doubling it so we have leftovers.

I started by dicing the bacon and then adding it to a super large, hot skillet. I know it looks like a lot of bacon and frankly, I adjusted the recipe to add more for a few reasons. 1) It's turkey bacon, so it's healthier, so I can add more. 2) It's the only meat in the dish, so it needs to be heavily represented. 3) Is there such thing as too much bacon? (No is the answer).

While the bacon was cooking, I chopped up the shallot, the scallions and the garlic. Once the bacon was crispy, I added a bit of vegetable oil (because turkey bacon doesn't have as much fat and you need a little liquid in which you cook the veggies). Then I added the chopped stuff and cooked for a few minutes until the veggies were soft.

Then I added the cup of frozen peas and cooked for a few minutes until the peas were defrosted. I then turned of the heat and poured the mix into a bowl.

I then turned the skillet back on to a lower temperature and added the eggs. Scramble until well cooked (no runny eggs in fried rice, that would be super gross). Then remove those too into another bowl.

Next, I wiped down the skillet then added a few tablespoons of vegetable and let it get super hot. Once the oil is hot, I added the rice and smooshed it into as thin as a layer as I could. Let the rice cook for a few minutes, then stir and smoosh down again. Basically, you want all side of the rice to get a little browned and crispy.

Once the rice was ready, I added everything back into the skillet and stirred it all up, making sure to crumble the rice bunches and break up the pieces of egg.

I then poured the soy sauce into the skillet and mixed again. Definitely start out light on the soy sauce, you can always add more, but you can't take it away! This dish was amazing and quick- I can't say enough good things about it!!!